The paper explores the impact of the continental system exerted on the constitutional and political evolution of both the United States and individual states and tries to characterize the development of constitutional review phenomenon within the framework of the continental legal system and the Anglo-Saxon legal system. The research stands on the…

Discusses Rokeach's conceptualization of values and specifically examines Rokeach's model of political orientation based on the importance of Freedom and Equality. Contends that content analysis of four American political books using Rokeach's model underscores these two values as those most important for differentiating ideological positions. (MH)

This paper reviews the Westley-MacLean communication model, suggests some important research questions generated by it, and discusses recent research in mass media. A brief review of recent research suggests that the concept of agenda setting may be usefully superimposed on the Westley-MacLean model to reveal partial answers to some of these…

Rather than accept present theoretical approaches to the study of community political power as a basis for developing new theory, this monograph examines the saliency of the approaches themselves. By considering what kinds of data and questions are excluded by Hunter's "repute analysis" technique and Dahl's "issue analysis"…

Piaget's model of intellectual maturity was used to examine young people's perspectives on foreign policy. Results indicate that cognitive maturity is positively associated with the ability to make deliberative policy judgments. Young Americans exhibit relatively low levels of political impulsiveness and have a realistic view of foreign policy…

A review of the literature reveals that a complete model, within a political framework, for what takes place when special interest groups and mass media interact does not exist. Since media access is more successful for groups with specific goals and resources, a model for the interaction of special interest groups and the mass media focuses on…

Critiques and studies have found the traditional two-step flow model of social influence inadequate to describe and explain relationships between interpersonal and mass communications during political campaigns. A study was undertaken to incorporate a wider range of variables pertinent to both kinds of political communication behaviors to redefine…

Focusing on whether and how research actually contributes to the formation of public policy, this paper explores the critical problems in the linkage between science production and the systems that formulate educational policy. The authors suggest that the utilization of social research is limited more by problems of integrating research into the…

Converse's black-and-white model of attitude stability, in which there are some stable opinion holders and a group of nonopinion respondents whose positions vary over time, is supported. Relationships of education and political involvement to opinion holding suggest that respondents hold stable opinions on issues that are most important to them.…

The research on which this paper is based examined the legislative process resulting in Minnesota's tuition tax concession statutes through a study of four decision events: the 1955 passage of a tax deduction, the 1971 adoption of a tax credit, the 1976 increase of the 1955 deduction allowance, and the 1981 retention of this deduction in a climate…

An exploration of the decision-making processes of state legislators on public school finance issues focuses on major school finance changes that occurred in Michigan in 1973 and in Washington and Missouri in 1977. Roll call votes, primarily in the lower chambers of the state legislatures, on both selected amendments and the complete versions of…

This book contains four papers, each a chapter, that share in the discourse of Paulo Freire and provide varying perspectives on the ways to advance social transformation and achieve a politically literate citizenry as a democratic enterprise. The following four papers are included: "Exploring the Limits of Participatory Democracy: Prudent and…